Pickup Truck Plus Riley Plus First Aid Kit
by Maren1978
Summary: They got what they came for, but they never make it to exfil. Before she knows it, Riley finds herself alone with two badly injured team members, and it's up to her get them rescued and to keep them alive until then. Oh yeah, and the bad guys are still after them, of course...
1. Chapter 1

AN: My plan was to write a Riley-centered story with a hurt Jack in it. Well, I did, but... I don't know how it happened… Somehow, Mac got himself hurt, too. What can I do? The kid just can't stay out of trouble, can he? ;-)

I can blame any language issues to the fact that I'm not a native English speaker and the medical inaccuracies to the fact that I'm not a professional of any kind in that matter. Besides, I'm taking plenty of creative liberty, so please don't try any of this at home! ;)

All the plot-holes... Well, I'm afraid they are entirely my fault.

Enjoy the first chapter! There are two more to come.

I own nothing, yadda, yadda, yadda…

…oooOOOooo…

Chapter 1:

Riley couldn't remember the exact moment when their mission started to go all the way to hell, but that didn't matter now. Fact was that it did. She was nervously shifting back and forth in the driver's seat of the pickup truck they'd commandeered as their escape vehicle. The sounds she heard over the comm in her ear became more and more alarming. Shouts, grunts, gunfire, heavy breathing. MacGyver and Jack were too busy getting themselves out of there alive to keep her updated. She could only guess what was going on, but according to the cacophony of noises, they'd run into a heavy fight.

 _Whatever happened to the 'quick and stealthy in-and-out without anybody knowing we've been here'?_

It dawned on the young hacker that they'd already been made, before the mission even started. They'd been aware that their intel had been sketchy at best, but they hadn't anticipated to be expected like that.

Suddenly, there was a huge, earthshaking explosion, which she didn't only hear over the comm and from outside of the vehicle simultaneously, but also felt as vibrations beneath her. She jumped in fright, her guts churning. What the hell was happening to Mac and Jack in there? Were they okay? Riley started the engine. She'd have to move soon and she silently prayed that she'd be picking up her two fellow agents as planned.

 _That would be the first thing that went according to plan since they've gone in…_

"Jack? Mac?" she shouted into her comm, "You guys okay in there?" She listened to more heavy breathing and running footsteps. After maybe half a minute, Mac's breathless voice answered her.

"Ri, be at the - meeting point – in exactly - 45 - seconds!" He was running for his life by the sounds of it, hardly getting the words out between wheezes.

"Copy," she acknowledged, put her foot down and the truck jerked into movement.

 _Please, be there! Be okay!_

She kept repeating that in her head. Her heart dropped when she approached the meeting point with eight seconds to spare and couldn't see her friends anywhere. "Mac, are you two coming?"

"Don't stop – Just slow down - We'll jump on," Jack gasped in her ear. Finally, she saw them. They were running at top speed, zigzagging like hares to avoid the bullets that were being fired at them. Riley slowed down just enough to time her arrival at the gap in the fence exactly. The second she was right next to it, the men jumped, grabbed hold of the low sidewall around the truck bed, pulled themselves up and crawled into the relative safety of the truck.

" _Go, go, go, go, go_!" Jack yelled as soon as they were safely on and Riley floored it. They were finally on their way to exfil, but they still had a couple of bumpy kilometers ahead of them. She checked the rear-view mirror. Mac and Jack lay sprawled on the truck bed and desperately tried to hold onto something to keep themselves in place, but there wasn't much to grab hold of. She kept the gas pedal pressed down as far as it would go. From what she could see, they seemed to be fine for now, but the other thing she spotted in the mirror was not fine at all, although to be expected: They'd picked up a tail. Three off-roaders were following the pickup, and in spite of Riley driving as fast as the truck would go, they were coming gradually closer.

"Keep it up, Ri. I'll take care of them," Mac shouted in her ear and she concentrated on the road in front of her. Well, calling this impressive collection of bumps and potholes a 'road' was a bit generous, but she could work with that, as long as her two passengers could get rid of their pursuers, or at least slow them down enough to reach exfil with a decent head start.

…oooOOOooo…

Behind her, Mac was fiddling with stuff as usual. This time, it involved - among other things she couldn't make out - several empty beer cans from the pile of trash that littered the truck bed, fuel from a spare canister and strips from his own shirt.

"Alright, Ri, slow down. Let them come closer," Mac told her.

She really, REALLY hoped she'd misheard.

" _WHAT?_ " she yelled back, "Reception must be bad here. It sounded like 'Let them come _closer_ '?"

"That's what I said," Mac replied calmly, "They gotta come closer so we can get rid of them." Riley didn't like it one little bit. "They're gonna catch up on us anyway. We can't outrun them in this thing," the blond agent went on. Riley knew he was right.

She still didn't like it.

"Whatever your plan is, Mac, it better works," she sighed and released the pressure on the gas pedal. The truck slowed down and the first off-roader made its appearance. Bullets ricocheted off the back of the truck and the two men ducked low behind the steel panels that surrounded the truck's bed. As soon as the fire ceased, Mac lit something and handed it to Jack, who threw it at the car closest to them. It obviously was some kind of makeshift grenade and it exploded right on target: under the front axis of the car. The vehicle jerked, skidded off the path and crashed into a tree. _One down, two to go._ Jack whooped over the comm.

They didn't have to wait long for the next car to catch up, although that one approached with a little more caution. Unluckily – for _them_ at least – it didn't do them any good. Jack's aim was just as great and this time, the pursuing car ended up across the road, blocking it. The third off-roader was too close behind it to slow down in time and crashed into the other's side at full speed, tipping it over.

"Yeeeeeehhaaaaaw," Riley yelled excitedly, "that was freakin' _awesome_ , guys! We're home free!"

…oooOOOooo…

She could hardly believe their luck. The bad guys chasing them were out for the count, they were hardly a kilometer away from exfil and they were right on time.

Only problem was, that said luck didn't last further than to the next turn of the road. A fourth off-roader appeared suddenly in front of them, heading their way. With a couple of massive trees to her right and a hillside to her left, Riley had nowhere to go, so she stepped onto the brake as hard as she could to slow them down but she knew it was already too late. She heard her own voice screaming a warning to Jack and Mac in the back. She realized in horror that they had no protection at all on the open truck bed when they crashed and they couldn't even see it coming...

The oncoming car didn't slow down and Riley managed to avoid ramming into it head-on by a fraction. The two vehicles scratched against each other's sides. She desperately tried to keep the pickup on the road, but it was too narrow for both cars, and so they started a barely controlled descent down the muddy and slippery hillside. Their way was spiked with trees and boulders, and Riley barely managed to avoid them. Her eyes widened in shock when the vehicle suddenly hit something with a crash, overturned and started to roll down the hill.

She desperately held onto the steering wheel, squeezed her eyes shut and prayed to whoever might be listening that they weren't all going to die. She heard herself yell in both panic and pain, as she was violently thrown around in her seat and into the seat belt. Her rucksack had slipped out of the niche under the driver's seat where she'd stored it and was bumping around the inside of the truck.

When the tumbling finally stopped, she first noticed unbearable pressure on her left shoulder. Blood rushed in her ears, her head pounded painfully and there was an obnoxious smell around her – diesel fuel. She knew it didn't explode as easily as the movies make us think, but better be safe than sorry. She had to get out. Now. She opened her eyes, and immediately closed them again. Everything was spinning, blurry and hanging upside down.

"Great! Landed on the roof," she mumbled, grimacing. Everything hurt. The comm was still in her ear and she tapped it.

"Jack? Mac? You OK?" she asked tentatively and then listened hard, but got no reply from either man. She tried a little louder, "Guys? Can you hear me? Answer, please!" Her heart clenched. She dearly hoped that their lack of response was just because of busted comms or something, but considering what just happened, their chances of being okay after this lay far beyond the border to a miracle. Riley fumbled clumsily with her earpiece and tried another channel.

"Matty? Do you read me?" All she heard was static and she felt a wave of panic raise up in her throat. _They'll just know we missed exfil. They won't be searching for us in a hurry, unless we call for help._

She groped for her belt buckle to free herself. Left hand on the car's roof to avoid falling onto her already hurting head, she took a deep breath, opened the buckle with her right hand and eased herself down onto the roof as carefully as possible. She still landed hard, though. Her entire body was probably one enormous bruise, but after a quick inventory, she didn't think she'd broken anything. However, as she was crawling out of the truck's cabin through the shattered windshield, icy dread filled her insides. She might have been lucky, but she'd had the protection of the metal cabin and the seat-belt. Mac and Jack though...

As much as the young analyst urged to do so, she knew better than to call out for them. Their pursuers were bound to be still after them. And sure enough, when she looked up the darkening hillside, she spotted two flashlight beams shining around. At least two men were combing the woods for them. Riley reached into the wrecked truck and pulled her rucksack out. It contained her ever-present, trusty laptop, as well as a small first aid kit, a flashlight and a metal canteen filled with drinking water. She shouldered the pack with a groan.

She had to get away from the car, find Mac and Jack and try to keep them all from being caught. _Easy, right?_ She couldn't help but chuckle ironically. A second later, she realized that she'd have to work under the assumption that neither man was likely to be in any condition to be of much help. She was going to be on her own.

 _Don't you two dare being dead when I find you! I swear, if you are, I'm gonna kill you,_ she thought bitterly, while she slipped away from the truck and from the dancing light beams that were approaching. She watched one of the beams hit the wreck, heard one of the men shout something to the other and saw both of them run towards the upturned car. It wouldn't take them long to discover that it was empty and then, they'd immediately start combing through the light forest. The darkness, that had fallen in the meantime, wouldn't hide her for long. While the two baddies reached the car, Riley sneaked up the hillside in a berth, to where the men had come from. She assumed, that in a place they'd already searched, she would be fairly safe for a short while.

Her next aim was to call for help. She crouched low between some bushes and pulled her phone out of her pocket - or what was left of it. She swore under her breath. Without having to look at it, she knew that it had been crushed to bits between her hip and the seatbelt. She'd felt it break at one point during her tumble. The sharp edges of the smashed device cut into her fingers as she closed them around it. She tried to switch it on against hope, but expectedly, it was completely dead.

The same was unfortunately true for her laptop, as she found out when she took it out of her pack and opened it. Her trusty piece of high-end technology had obviously taken offense to being thrown around inside the rolling car. The phone was clearly beyond repair, but she hoped that she'd be able to fix whatever was wrong with the portable computer, as soon as she found a place where it was safe to switch on her flashlight.

…oooOOOooo…

While Riley sneaked through the woods on her search for her teammates and a halfway safe place, a towering dark mass suddenly appeared in front of her. She realized that several tall rocks protruded from the ground, touching each other at the top and creating a recess large enough for a couple of averagely built adults to sit in. She edged closer to have a look.

Just as she was trying to decide whether that would make a great hiding-place or the worst ever trap, a pair of hands suddenly shot out between the rocks and grabbed her around the face and neck, before she could even yell. They were holding her in an iron grip and mercilessly dragging her into the rocky space. She struggled and fought with all her might, but she never stood a chance. She tried to bite the hand that was clamped over her mouth, kicked out and dug her fingernails in as hard as she could, but the grip effectively cut off her air supply and she felt her strength fading quickly. She knew she was only seconds away from losing consciousness, and maybe subsequently her life.

 _Sorry, guys, I tried,_ was her last thought before...

Before the man who held her suddenly emitted a surprised gasp and let go of her. She was too stunned and too busy gulping in wheezy breaths to react for a moment.

"Riley?" gasped Jack's voice in total disbelief and shock, "Jesus! I didn't realize it was you! I'm so sorry, are you okay?"

"Jack," she croaked hoarsely, squinting at the man who had attacked her seconds before, but wasn't able to see anything in the dark space they were in, "Thank god it's you! Are _you_ okay? When the car flipped, I thought-" Her voice caught in her aching throat and she couldn't finish the sentence.

"Riles? Where's Mac?" Jack's voice was very solemn and full of dread. Riley's heart sank.

"I don't know. I haven't seen him since..."

 _Since the crash._

"We need to find him, before _they_ do."

Judging by the pained strain in his voice, Riley gathered that the older agent was far from okay. "Jack, how badly are you hurt?"

"I'll live," Jack replied vaguely, "hurt my leg a little," he conceded after a short pause, not reassuring her the least bit.

"So, how bad, exactly, is 'a little'?" Riley demanded, trying in vain to make out the extend of the damage in the darkness.

"You – uhm- you might need to make a splint," he pressed out through clenched teeth.

"A- splint? You mean you broke your leg?" The hacker was even more terrified now. Jack didn't respond, but his silence, along with his fast and shallow breathing, said it all. Riley sighed. She rummaged through her pack and pulled out the Maglite and the first aid kit she carried. It wasn't much, but it'd have to do. "Lemme take a look," she ordered firmly and switched on the light, with her back turned towards the opening to shield most of the treacherous glow from shining outside and giving them away. She took a deep breath to steel herself, but still, when she took a closer look at the mangled limb, she felt the color drain from her face.

"Oh God, Jack," she breathed, horrified. There was just too much blood! She opened the first aid kit with shaking hands, put on disposable gloves, took out a pair of scissors and cut the leg of Jack's pants open to unveil the source of all the blood that had soaked the fabric and was forming an alarmingly large pool on the ground. Jack bit back a moan when the scissors accidentally touched too close to the wound, but couldn't suppress a sharp intake of breath through his teeth. "Sorry, sorry," Riley hastily apologized.

"Just get on with it," he hissed, "we need to find Mac!"

Riley had now removed the fabric up to a point above the knee and was looking at the bloody mess that had once been Jack's right lower leg. A jarred piece of broken tibia was sticking out of the skin, halfway between knee and ankle. By the unnatural angle of the extremity, Riley felt safe to assume that the fibula was broken as well.

"I guess movin' around to get in here wasn't the brightest idea I've ever had," Jack admitted grudgingly.

"How did you figure that out?" She couldn't help her sarcasm. "How did you even manage?" she asked exasperatedly, watching the man's already ashen face loose even more color, "You have a friggin' piece of bone sticking out of your leg. I need to patch that up, if you don't wanna loose that leg to some nasty infection; that is if you don't bleed out too fast for any germ can get the better of you."

"Don't mind me, I'll be fine. Go find Mac. He might need ya help more'n I do." Riley didn't fail to notice the slur in the injured man's voice.

"Stop it right there! Didn't you listen? You're bleeding like a pig at slaughter! That is light-years away from 'fine'. I'm not leaving you behind to die, no matter what!"

Jack didn't argue any further and Riley was torn between being glad that he'd shut up, and being beyond worried about it. Good was that she could concentrate on treating the wound instead of getting involved in any more pointless discussions; on the down side, she knew that Jack must truly be in a bad way if he gave in that easily. She was worried sick for Mac as well, of course, but there wasn't anything she could do for her younger colleague right now. For all she knew, he could be unhurt and already working on their way home. Or dead. Or gotten captured. Or... She had to shove those thoughts aside for now and concentrate on saving Jack, before she'd go out there and look for Mac.

 _To be continued…_

…oooOOOooo…

I hope you like it.

Feedback will be very much appreciated. ;)


	2. Chapter 2

…oooOOOooo…

Chapter 2:

Riley had been through the basic courses in field-medicine and knew she had to clean the wound thoroughly, before putting pressure on it to stop the bleeding and cover the wound with sterile gauze to keep the inevitable infection at bay for as long as possible. Shifting the sharp-edged bone pieces in the process could easily cause even more damage, so she had to avoid that if she could. She looked at Jack's face and hated herself for what she'd have to do.

"This is going to hurt," she warned him. Jack was having trouble focusing on her and mumbled something unintelligible. Riley had no choice but to take that as his approval to go on. She grabbed the bottle of antiseptic rinsing solution and cleaned away the blood to get a better look at the wound itself. She immediately wished she hadn't. She had to close her eyes and swallow down bile for a couple of seconds, before she collected herself enough to go on.

 _There's no time for this now. I can be sick when this is done._

After the cleaning, she opened several packs of sterile gauze bandage and padded the area around the splintered end of the bone, careful to touch it as little as possible. Then she arranged a couple of unopened packs on top of the padding and wrapped elastic bandages tightly around in a way that put most of the pressure on the packs and hopefully not on the broken bone.

"You still with me, old man?" she asked when she saw that Jack's eyes had closed and his mouth was hanging open. He didn't respond, so she slapped his face, gently at first, then a little harder. "No sleeping! Open those eyes, c'mon! You can't leave me here all alone," she urged. Finally, Jack let out a moan and lifted his eyelids a fraction. He had paled even more, droplets of cold sweat had formed on his forehead and his gaze was glassy. Riley didn't think that he was fully aware of his surroundings. His skin felt cool and clammy and he was shivering slightly. Breathing and pulse were both too fast. _Shock. Not good!_

As moving the injured leg was certainly a bad idea, she helped Jack to get as comfortable as possible where he lay and wrapped him in the shiny emergency blanket from the first aid kit to preserve body heat. It was all she could think of to do for him under the circumstances. He needed a hospital, or he was going to die from either blood-loss or infection. She needed to get him out of there fast _and_ she needed to find out what had happened to Mac.

Unfortunately, fixing her rig hadn't been as easy and quick as she'd hoped, as she didn't have the necessary tools handy. Besides, she hadn't found Jack's phone anywhere, when she'd searched for it. She strongly suspected Mac of having something to do with that. _He probably used it to cause the explosion I heard earlier... Let's hope he has spared his own!_

She checked Jack's vitals one more time and found them concerning, but stable. Riley pulled one of Jack's backup guns from its holster, made sure that it was loaded and pocketed it, just in case. She really didn't want to use it, but she didn't want to run into any bad guys alone and unarmed, either.

She switched off the little flashlight, put it in her backpack along with the remains of the first aid kit to take it along and creeped over to the opening to peek outside. Her eyes took a minute to adjust, but when they did, she saw that the two men were still searching for them. She couldn't really see them in the moonless night, but their flashlights indicated exactly where they were. Their search pattern had led them to the opposite side of the downed truck first, but they were already on their way back, coming closer. It was only a matter of time until they'd find the niche where she'd have to leave Jack, as defenseless as she'd never seen him before. She shuddered.

…oooOOOooo…

Just when she started to think of a way to distract them from the hiding-place, one of them shouted something she didn't understand and pointed the flashlight to something on the ground. She couldn't make out what it was from her position, as there was a low elevation blocking her view, but considering the behavior of the two men, she had a grim suspicion of _who_ it could be. She edged closer very carefully and hid behind a bush on top of the elevation. As she peeked through the low branches, the other guy joined the first one. Both were looking down onto a motionless form lying in a boneless heap next to a tree-trunk.

It was Mac!

A combination of ice-cold dread and scorching rage washed up and down Riley's body, making her shiver, when one of the men carelessly nudged Mac with his foot, as if he was a raccoon lying dead next to a highway. The other one knelt down next to him and roughly lifted the head by his blond hair to look at his face. In the glaring shine of the man's flashlight, she could see that the half of Mac's face that wasn't covered in partly dried blood was ghostly-white and there was more brownish-red stickiness in his hair. She winced when the man shrugged indifferently at a question from the other, before he let go of the hair to let Mac's head bump limply back onto the ground. He then put a finger to his throat to check for a pulse, waited for a moment and shook his head. To emphasize the point, he made a throat-slitting gesture with his fingers across his own neck and Riley felt as if the ground under her knees had just vanished and she was falling into a bottomless depth. Was he really dead?

 _God, NO!_

A new wave of rage surged through her when the kneeling man got up, wiped his hands on his pants with a disgusted expression on his face and both of them turned away from Mac, not without giving him another hard nudge, which was more of a kick, to his legs. Riley's hand unconsciously wandered towards the small of her back, where she had stored the borrowed gun for safekeeping. She couldn't possibly take such disrespectful behavior towards her friend.

 _Bastards! How dare you treat him like that?_ Her fingers closed firmly around the metal, which was still slightly cooler than her skin.

However, she wasn't a killer and she knew that Mac would never have approved of cold-blooded murder for revenge. That was the only thing that made her withdraw her hand and leave the weapon where it was. For now. She would, if necessary, defend herself and her team with everything she'd got, though.

Although she had little hope, Riley had to check on Mac. As much as she dreaded it, she had to make sure he was indeed beyond saving.

 _Oh my god, how on earth am I supposed to break it to Jack?_ That thought made her stomach tighten, while she crawled the short distance to the tree where Mac's crumpled figure lay. _It's gonna destroy him! He might even choose to die here as well. If he stops fighting, he's never gonna make it..._ She was terrified of what she might find. Silent tears were running down her face by the time she reached the body on the ground. At least, it didn't seem like he'd been crushed under the truck.

Switching on the flashlight would have immediately notified the bad guys of her presence, so she had to work with almost no light. She had to swallow hard to keep down the sobs that were trying to rip themselves free from her throat, while she started to examine her downed friend with shaking hands. Her fingers found the pulse point beneath the cool skin of his throat and she held her breath, hoping against hope for the soft throbbing to be there.

And sure enough, after what wasn't more than maybe half a minute – although it felt like an eternity to her - she felt the soft rhythm beneath her fingertips, frighteningly weak, but regular. Her heart hammered in her throat as if it wanted to beat for both of them and tears, of relief this time, were freely running down her cheeks. She ignored them and brought her ear close to Mac's face. He was breathing slowly but steadily. The hostiles had obviously been anything but thorough with their 'examination' and hadn't picked up on the feeble signs of life.

 _Thank God! Thank God!_

Riley talked to the unconscious agent, more to calm and focus herself, than for his benefit, as he was clearly in no condition to hear her. The persistent unconsciousness, along with the head injury, was alarming. She knew that it could indicate something much worse than 'just' a concussion.

She continued checking him for more injuries, apart from the still bleeding laceration in his hair. His left elbow didn't feel quite right; whether it was dislocated or broken was hard to tell. She'd have to immobilize the arm either way, so it didn't really matter right now.

Riley would have preferred not to move the injured man, but unfortunately, she'd come to the conclusion that she had to. She prayed that she hadn't missed any signs of internal injuries. She had two badly injured patients to take care of now and she needed them to be in one place. Besides, it had become unpleasantly cold and a light drizzle had started to fall. Unless she brought Mac out of the weather and preferably into the shelter where she'd left Jack, he was going to fall victim to hypothermia soon. As she certainly couldn't carry him, dragging him across the rough terrain was the only way she could think of, unless she could somehow wake him up.

The young woman took the first aid kit out of her pack again. She carefully cut away the bloody hair around the cut _(Sorry, Mac, but I have to),_ cleaned the wound and bandaged it.

When she started to take care of the arm, Mac gave a soft moan of pain. Her hopes rose. Maybe he wasn't as far gone as she'd feared?

"Mac? Can you hear me? Please, try to come out of it," she pleaded, gently slapping his face, "C'mon, MacGyver!" She took a deep, steadying breath and went on with her ministrations. Getting the injured arm fixed to his chest caused Mac to moan and stir weakly. "I'm sorry, brother! But you need to wake up." She gently prodded the sore spot, muttering a string of apologies. The moaning became stronger and Riley wasn't sure with the little light, but she thought she might have caught a glimpse of blue before the eyelids slid shut again. "There you go Mac, try again! Open your eyes! I know you can do it," she went on, encouraging him to pull himself back towards the land of the living, "We need to get you out of this weather. Jack's got to be worried out of his mind by now!" The drizzle was steadily developing into actual rain by now and they were both slowly but surely getting soaked. At the mention of Jack's name, Mac's eyes suddenly snapped open and he looked around wildly, searching for his partner.

"J'ck," he rasped with a voice like emery paper, "s'he okay?" Riley decided to avoid an honest answer to that question for now.

"You think you can get up and take a little walk, if I help ya? Jack's found us some shelter."

"J'ck?" He looked around frantically again with unfocused eyes. "s'he okay?"

 _Oh yeah, concussion…_

"Right over there." Riley pointed in the general direction of the rocks. "Think you can make it?" Not waiting for an answer, she helped him sit up against the tree. Mac's stomach objected to the change of position, though, and it convulsed violently, spilling its scarce contents onto the muddy forest ground. The hacker grabbed him to keep him from falling over into his own vomit. When he was done, she leaned him back against the trunk. Damn, he was so weak!

"Sorry," Mac mumbled hoarsely.

"Nothing to be sorry for," she reassured him. "Come on, up you get!"

She placed his good arm over her own shoulders, grabbed his belt with her left hand and stood up, taking him with her to an upright position. He swayed and she gripped him tighter in support, until he regained some of his balance. Then, she started walking, more or less dragging him along.

He was in serious condition, but at least he was alive. If Riley wanted him to stay that way until medical professionals took care of him, and she intended to do anything humanly possible to make sure of that, she had to figure out a way to alert Phoenix of their situation. When the exfil team had followed protocol, they'd left the pick-up point when the agents hadn't turned up, to wait for further instructions. Riley knew that if she wanted them to try a rescue, it was on her to figure out a way to signal Phoenix that they were still alive and in need of medevac.

Riley hadn't really expected to find Mac's phone on him – and she was right. Therefore, she had to find a way to fix her laptop to call for help, on top of keeping both her injured colleagues alive until then… and make sure those bad guys didn't find them, before the exfil team did.

 _Speaking of the bad guys, where are they, by the way?_

…oooOOOooo…

It was a fairly short distance, but by the time they reached Jack's hiding-place, they were both panting and sweating. Mac hung limply at her side, not able to keep his feet under him anymore. Riley stumbled and slipped on the uneven, sodden ground and suddenly, her knees buckled under their combined weight and they crashed to the ground. Mac let out a barely audible, broken cry of pain, which cut deep into Riley's heart, and started heaving again. He didn't have anything left to throw up, though.

"Sorry, sorry, sorry," she hastened to apologize, while she rubbed his back soothingly. When the heaving stopped and Mac laid his head down in exhaustion, Riley shakily scrambled to her feet and covered the last few meters to their pitiful shelter to check on Jack, before bringing Mac in.

The moment she ducked into the opening, she froze in fright. A glaring light was suddenly shining into her face and within the split-second her eyes took to squeeze shut against the piercing brightness, she realized that the barrel of a gun was pointing at her face.

"You can put the gun down, Jack. It's me," she announced, grimacing, "and the light, too, please!"

"Drop your weapons, get in here, and keep your hands where I can see them!"

Riley felt whatever color might have been left in her face drain from it and was afraid she might faint. That rough, heavily accented voice most definitely wasn't Jack's and the man it belonged to didn't even think about lowering the gun _or_ the flashlight.

 _Crap!_

 _Dear Fate, when I asked if this day could get any worse, it wasn't a challenge..._

 _To be continued..._

…oooOOOooo…


	3. Chapter 3

AN: Here's the last part already. Thanks so much to erveryone who read, liked, followed, reviewed or PN'ed. I hope the ending doesn't disappoint too much, as I seem to suck on them... Well, there you go ;)

…oooOOOooo…

Chapter 3:

"You son of a _bitch_! You think he's gonna run away on that leg? There was no need for that," Riley hissed, when she saw that that Jack was bound. Not only his wrists, but also his _ankles_ were zip-tied together. The broken leg had been jostled in the process and forced into an even more unnatural angle than before. Jack was drenched in sweat, shaking and breathing in pained, wheezing gasps. Riley suspected that her carefully applied pressure bandage was now aggravating the broken bones. She didn't even want to imagine how much pain the ex-Delta had to be in. If glares could kill, their capturer would have dropped dead on the spot. Sadly, he was still in the best of health.

"He's only still alive because he doesn't deserve to be put out of his misery after stealing from us. Besides, he attacked _us_!" He pointed at a prone figure lying on the ground close to Jack. The injured agent had obviously shot the other guy - and paid dearly for it. Riley grit her teeth so hard it hurt and didn't answer.

The man holding the gun gave her the fakest grin she'd ever seen in her life. It made her skin crawl. "You and I will have a little chat now, my dear. It's up to you to make it easy or hard on _him_ ," he declared, nodding at Jack, who was still trying to breathe through his agony.

Riley stared at the man in front of her in shock. "You're not gonna torture him—" Her voice failed and she broke off.

"As much as I'd like that, I won't have to. He won't last much longer, anyway. You hand over the data you stole and I'll make it quick and clean for him. You're free to go." Riley's eyes widened, when the man pointed his gun at Jack instead of her. She took in the bandages and saw that the rough treatment of the leg had reopened the wound. The once white material was soaked in red.

"Oh, that's an offer I can hardly refuse," she replied, her voice dripping with sarcasm, "Just for the sake of knowing all the odds: What's the alternative?"

"I'll shoot _you_ right here and he may take as long as he likes to perish miserably and _painfully_. He's a goner, one way or the other, but you can walk free _and_ safe him a lot of pain."

"Nice to have options," she muttered sarcastically, rolling her eyes, "What makes you think I trust you not to kill me anyway as soon as you've got what you want? You're never gonna let me walk away."

"You don't have much of a choice, do you? Just in case you're hoping for your young pal to come for you: He's dead."

Riley froze as Jack let out a desperate wail. She tried to communicate to him without words that it wasn't true, but he didn't seem to be in any shape to notice. She didn't want the baddy to know, as it would give him even more leverage. Her heart shattered into thousands of tiny pieces, as she watched Jack fall apart under her very eyes. He curled up as far as his broken body allowed and pressed his face into the soft ground, sobbing unrestrainedly. The dark-haired woman felt another wave of hot and all-consuming rage burn its way through her veins at the sight. She couldn't take it any longer. She decided to go for a bluff.

"If one of us doesn't make it, you'll never get your data back. He hid it somewhere. He's the only one who knows where it is." Riley nodded at Jack. "And it won't be any good to you if I'm not around to decrypt the data. You'll have nothing but a scrambled mess of bits and bytes."

"Well, in that case, we'll kindly ask him to tell us where it is and then you'll unscramble it for me." A cruel smile played around his mouth and Riley held her breath. The man turned his attention away from her and towards Jack to 'persuade' him to talk. That was, what Riley had been counting on. Spurred on by a fresh rush of adrenaline that came with her wild rage, she kicked out hard in a smooth and lightning-fast movement. Her heavy boot connected with the man's face and she heard a sickening, but in this case deeply satisfying, crack. He howled in pain, hands over his broken nose.

Riley didn't find any pleasure in hurting people, but that had felt good! However, she was still so full of a blinding rage that she kicked out once more, catching the guy's jaw this time and making sure he'd be sucking his prison-food through a straw for a while.

"That was for tying up Jack's broken leg," she spat at him. He had sunk to the ground, half way over the man Jack had shot, whimpering, and she couldn't bring herself to be too gentle when she tied up his hands and feet with the spare zip-ties sshe'd found sticking out of the man's pocket. By the time she was done, her anger had subsided and been replaced by renewed worry for her two male teammates. She dashed over to Jack first, who looked ready to die right there.

"Hang on, man! No checking out on me, you hear me? I _really_ don't want to be the one who has to explain it to Mac if you did," she told him conversationally. Jack froze in mid-sob at her last sentence, sluggishly raised his head and stared at her with red, swollen eyes clouded with grief. His mouth formed Mac's name, but no sound came out. She smiled at him and winked.

"Yeah, that's right. They didn't look properly. He hit his head pretty bad, but he's alive. You don't go anywhere, I'll be back in a minute."

…oooOOOooo…

When Riley crawled back out into the by now heavy rain, she found Mac exactly where she'd had to leave him behind a couple of minutes before. He was sitting up, head hanging low, and looked as lost as a puppy that had gotten kicked out. Or like a ten-year-old who'd just been abandoned by his own father at his birthday. Riley's heart broke. He was soaking wet. His hair and the bandage around his head was drenched and a mixture of water and blood was dripping into his face. He occasionally blinked it out of his eyes, but otherwise, he didn't react to the downpour, seemingly not following where he was or what was going on. He startled, when Riley approached him, utter confusion in his eyes. He didn't seem to recognize her. _Oh boy!_

"Hey Mac, it's okay. It's me, Riley, remember?"

He stared at her forlornly, keeping his violently shaking hands in front of him in something like a defensive position, not making any sound, except for a slight chattering of his teeth.

 _Obviously not. Oh Mac..._

She went on in a calm, soothing tone, as if she was talking to a scared toddler, "It's okay, you don't have to. We can sort all that out later. Do you at least remember who _you_ are?"

She watched the wheels turn behind his eyes, until something seemed to fall into place.

"Mac. I'm Mac," he croaked and Riley gave him the widest grin she could manage. He lowered his hands. Riley couldn't quite tell whether he'd realized that he wouldn't need to fight her, or if his arms had just gotten tired.

"That'll do. Good!" She blinked the dripping rain out of her own eyes. She, too, was soaked by now. Water was running out of her hair, down her neck and into her collar, sending shivers down her back. "How would you like it if I got us out of this weather? Jack's found us a decently dry shelter. You remember Jack? Your Overwatch, heart as big as the state of Texas, his puns as bad as his karaoke?" It hurt Riley to watch Mac struggle to process all the information. However, Jack's name had apparently triggered something.

"Jack? Is he okay?" he asked worriedly, his gaze suddenly much more focused.

"Well, 'okay' would stretch the truth a little too thin, but he'll be much better as soon as he sees you alive and kickin'. Can you get up?" She extended her hand for him to grab, which he did after brief considering, and helped him to his feet.

It took some convincing to make him crawl into the space between the rocks, but as soon as he spotted Jack lying there, wrapped in the emergency blanket and looking absolutely miserable, he hurried to get to him.

"Jack," he exclaimed, "are you OK?"

The injured ex-Delta gaped at Mac, clearly thinking he was looking at a ghost.

"M- Ma- Mac?" he sputtered in disbelief, "Is- is- I mean – Is that really you?" His voice was weak and cracking and he blinked several times to clear his vision of any apparitions that weren't real. Mac edged closer and touched his shoulder, while Riley very gently undid the restraints at Jack's hands and feet. Then, she repaired the damage that had been done to her field-dressing. Jack didn't even seem to notice. He just kept sputtering and stuttering at Mac in astonishment, "you're alive? Really alive? You're not - dead?"

Mac seemed to ponder the question. "No, I- I don't think so..."

"He's taken one hell of a blow to the head. It looked like he hit a tree, when he was thrown from the truck. He's not exactly working on full capacity right now," Riley explained. The fact that Jack let this opportunity to crack jokes at Mac's expense go to waste, was a clear sign just how distraught he was.

"Is he gonna be all right?" he asked.

"I hope so," Riley replied. "Both of you need a hospital, like yesterday!"

"Does Matty know we're here?"

"No, I think she just knows that we missed exfil. The comm-connection was shot when we crashed. I don't think I got through. My phone's busted, too. You don't happen to have yours or Mac's in working condition?" she inquired, already knowing the answer. Jack negated.

"One was used for a distraction back in the compound and left behind; the other one went up in flames with the explosion. I can't even remember which was which."

 _Why did I even ask?_

Riley looked at Mac, who was still shaking violently. She had to get him warm. "Mac, this will be awkward as anything, but you need to get those wet clothes off and warm up. So why don't you guys share that blanket, while I finally try and fix my rig to get you some medevac?" She helped Mac out of his wet jacket, shirt, shoes and pants, leaving him only in his underwear. Jack shrugged his jacket off and handed it to him, which he gratefully accepted. _Gosh, he must really be cold!_

Riley rummaged through Mac's pant pockets and held up the red Swiss Army Knife. "May I borrow this?" she asked Mac, who nodded.

Her injured partners finally taken care off, she looked at them. The shivering blond had melted into Jack's warm, strong embrace, head resting on his shoulder. Jack gently brushed his wet and bloody bangs out of his face. He looked exactly like a father comforting his freezing and hurting kid. A decent, _loving_ , father. She felt her heart melt right with him.

The shiny foil of the blanket was securely tucked in everywhere around them and they looked as comfortable as they could get in their current predicament. Riley sighed and, screwdriver of the SAK in hand, started to fix the broken connections in her rig, finally, to send a signal to Matty.

…oooOOOooo…

A good hour later, they were all safely inside the helicopter. As soon as the exfil team had taken over and Mac and Jack were getting the medical attention they so desperately needed, Riley's body simply shut down. She was dry and warm now, her minor injuries had been patched up, she had drunk and eaten and was settled into in a halfway comfortable seat. With the adrenaline level in her blood dropping, her body suddenly felt as if it was filled with lead. She was too exhausted to lift even a single finger. Keeping her eyes open to watch over her colleagues while the medical team tended to them was taking up all her strength.

Jack was on the good drugs and was drifting in and out of a light doze. He'd need a couple of blood transfusions and surgery for his leg as soon as they reached a suitable hospital and he was clearly in for an extensive time of recovery and PT, but he'd definitely had worse.

Mac's dislocated elbow had been reset and was securely immobilized. He was still a little out of it and had to endure each and every test to evaluate the severity of his head injury that was available on the chopper. He was getting more and more irritable at the repeated questioning, lights being shone into his eyes and testing for various reflexes Riley didn't even know existed. There would be even more of that, and worse, at the hospital. She wholeheartedly pitied him.

The mission had been a success after all. The memory card with the data they were supposed to retrieve had been secured and the baddy they'd caught alive had been left behind strategically, to be found by the local authorities. He wasn't likely to be heard of again for a long, long time.

Riley was way too exhausted to fully appreciate what she'd managed to do on this mission. In her current state, she still felt guilty for crashing the truck in the first place. The scene was playing out in her mind in a continuous loop. She was permanently analyzing her every move, trying to find the mistake, the moment where she should have reacted faster or differently to save her teammates from getting so badly hurt. She couldn't think of any right now, but her thoughts were all scrambled and buzzing around in her skull like a swarm of angry bees.

All things considered, they had been incredibly lucky. They had all survived and, after what had happened to them, that was nothing short of a miracle. Tears pricked in her eyes when her mind unsolicitedly provided her with other possible outcomes: them being caught again, or being shot in the pickup, or - she swallowed hard, only partially suppressing a sob – or one or both of her friends being crushed under the rolling vehicle… What if Mac had really been killed when he'd hit that tree? He could easily have broken his neck, or cracked his skull, or sustained fatal internal injuries, or succumbed to hypothermia before she'd found him, or Jack could have…

 _Stop it!_

 _But what if…?_

She shuddered, but not from cold, so pulling the grey woolen blanket tighter around her shoulders didn't help much.

"Agent Davis, are you feeling all right?" Riley opened her eyes warily and met the concerned gaze of one of the medics. She swallowed against a lump and cleared her throat.

"I'm okay, just tired," she informed him. "How are they?"

"Stable for now. Thanks to you, by the way," the medic replied, gently patting her arm. "They'd like to talk to you, if you feel up to it."

"Sure!" She tried to stand up, but the seat belt held her back. She'd totally forgotten about being buckled up. She felt herself blush crimson.

"Let me give you a hand."

The medic helped her get up and move over to the opposite side of the helicopter, where she could sit down on a stool between the two gurneys. Mac was sitting up on his, still not through with the tests. He was gradually becoming more coherent, but unfortunately, that came at the price of him getting more and more annoyed. Riley winced and tried to tune out his futile attempts to convince the other medic that he was perfectly fine and should skip the trip to the hospital. His persisting nausea proved him wrong, though, and the medic was having none of it. Riley left Mac to his fate and turned to Jack. The older man was resting on his gurney with his eyes closed, IV needle in the back of his left hand. His injured leg had been stabilized by some kind of vacuum brace for the transport. When Riley sat down next to him, Jack opened his eyes and turned his head in her direction.

"Hey, big guy, how's it goin'?" she asked softly.

"Hey kiddo! You were amazing back there, you know that?" His speech sounded as if his tongue was a little too big for his mouth, but he grinned proudly from ear to ear.

"I'm glad to see that your pain medication is working fine," she teased a little lamely.

"Oh yeah, feels great!" He closed his eyes and smiled contently. Then, his expression changed and he looked worried, and guilty. "I jus' wanna say thanks for pullin' our asses out! I'm so sorry that I wasn' of much help down there." The slight slur in his voice was a little more prominent. Riley stared at him.

"What on earth are you talking about, Jack? You're injured! You almost got your leg ripped off! You were bleeding out! I was terrified, Jack! I thought you'd die on me!"

"I would'a, if it wasn' for you. Ya saved all our asses las' night."

Riley hung her head. "If I hadn't flipped the pickup, you wouldn't have needed saving in the first place. If any of you had died, it would've been my fault!"

"Now listen carefully, kid! You did some truly impressive drivin' back there. There's nothin' you could have done to prevent the accident."

"But it was my job to get you two safely to exfil. I failed!"

Jack closed his eyes and grimaced. "Damn, please don't tell me it's contagious."

"What?" Riley didn't follow.

"Those goddamn guilt trips! You jus' sounded exactly like Mac! Did he give you lessons? You know what, forget about it, _I'm_ givin' you a lesson now and you pay attention: Bad things happen on missions, 'specially on those as screwed as this one. Sometimes people get hurt, or worse, even if nobody makes a mistake. It sucks, but that's the way it is!"

"Occupational hazard," Riley murmured under her breath. "You know, I'm aware that what we do is dangerous and every mission could be our last. Nevertheless, I love my job and I wouldn't want it any other way, but when that car rolled over… I was so scared it would crush you two to death! And when they found Mac and signaled he was d-" Her voice broke, but she went on, "I almost lost it there. And you were losing so much blood –" Her voice cracked again and she trailed off.

"Hey, hey, hey! S'okay, kid!" Jack reached out to her and she grabbed his hand. He squeezed hers reassuringly and kept mumbling soothing nonsense. She looked anywhere but at him, until she managed to get a grip on herself. Instead, she watched Mac finally surrender to the medics and lay down on his gurney with a pout. However, he turned his head toward her and gave a smile that was meant just for her alone and silently mouthed "Thank you!"

 _Wow, they're good!_

A small smile played around her lips, while she laid down her head on the edge of Jack's gurney and closed her eyes. The fingers of his big rough hand very gently played with her hair and she relaxed, feeling the tension inside her loosen up and the fear drain away a little more with every soft stroke of his fingers.

By the time the chopper touched down on the hospital roof, she was feeling a lot better.

 _They're being taken care of now. They're going to be okay…_

This mission and its possible outcomes were likely to haunt her nightmares for a while, but her team, her _family_ , would be there for her, if it got too bad to handle, or she just wanted to talk.

No matter what happened, they had each other's backs.

Always.

~~~~~ Ende ~~~~~


End file.
